Most Pharma Labs Are Transforming—But How Digitally Mature Are They Really?

The Push Towards Modern Lab Environments

Digital transformation is now central to how pharma companies operate. Labs are under pressure to digitise to:

• Bring medicines to market quicker
• Lower costs of drug discovery, development and manufacturing
• Keep compliant with changing regulations
• Reduce late-stage drug failures
• Improve collaboration between departments 

In 2022, pharmaceutical companies spent on average 2.7% of their revenue on modernising and digitising their lab environments. In fact, big pharma companies spent even more—3.7% of their over $10 billion dollars revenue was spent on lab transformation initiatives.

On the surface, transformation is clearly underway.

Most Labs Are Still Early in Their Digital Journey

But here’s the reality: most labs are still in the early stages.

Pharmaceutical companies are:

• Running pilots
• Testing proofs of concept
• Experimenting with new technologies

In many labs, systems are still not fully connected. Some teams are less advanced than others, and data sits across different tools.

In fact, only 1 in 10 organisations have even partially scaled up their digital transformation, let alone fully scaled up.

The Data Explosion in Pharma

So what is holding them back?

Over 90% of companies are struggling with the huge volume of data. Data volumes are growing rapidly—especially with advances in genomics and new therapies.

In the past, scientists were focused on genome sequencing, and just one human genome generated gigabytes of data. However, nowadays scientists prefer to perform multiomics analysis. This means they combine different biological datasets, including from the genome, from proteins, from epigenetics and even from the microbiome. There is so much data!

An Overview of Multiomics

However, often this data isn’t properly connected, which creates real problems:

• Data is hard to access, making it difficult to apply technologies like AI
• Important insights are missed
• Lab experiments get repeated—sometimes multiple times!

Use a Digital Maturity Assessment

To fix this, labs need more than new technology—they need a clear understanding of where they stand today.

That’s where a Digital Maturity Assessment comes in.

It shows you exactly where your lab stands—across systems, data, and processes.

You’ll quickly see:

• How connected your systems are
• How easy it is to use your data
• How well teams work together

It gives you a clear view of where you stand—and where to focus next.

Building a Smarter, More Connected Lab

From there, you can create a focused, actionable plan and move forward with confidence.

You will be able to:

• Prioritise the right initiatives
• Improve how data is used
• Reduce inefficiencies across the lab

But progress like this, needs to start with understanding where you are today.

And the only way to do that…

is to measure it.

Click below to become a member of the ADIGILEAP website and try out our new Digital Lab Maturity Assessment for yourself!